BEST TWO YEARS

BEST TWO YEARS

Monday, October 21, 2013

Email sent October 21, 2013: Elder Oaks is Coming!

Here is what happened during me past week. 

MONDAY:

We had our P-day at the huge house again. This time I played basketball and Ultimate Frisbee. I jammed my finger pretty bad and it got really swollen so they had to cut it off. Other than that it was a really good P-Day. Or i just jammed it and now I'm totally fine and not in harm’s way. The Spirit of the Lord is with me every day and I feel so spiritually filled. And I have all my appendages….hahahahahah…I'm a terrible child. We also went to a bamboo forest behind the house and it was so pretty and calm!  Until Elder Jex got there, then it just got wild. He started climbing up the bamboo shoots and made it like 20 feet up and then he fell.  He's fine.

TUESDAY:

We've started doing all Spanish days every other day and we started on Tuesday. It was pretty difficult since it was district meeting and I couldn't really talk to anyone and joke around, but it was a good day of realizing how much I need to learn. It really made me realize how much more I could be doing to learn the language.

Elder Hansen, from the other companionship in the ward left on Tuesday as well.  He was a super funny guy that is from Salt Lake as well.  He is 20 and was a ski bum for two years, but then decided to serve a mission and start doing something with his life.  He was assigned to speak English, but when he got here he was switched to Spanish, without any Spanish training.  It was a hard 12 weeks for him to say the least. After Tuesday he was switched back to English speaking. He wasn't too happy since he was making really good progress in Spanish and now he's not even speaking it.

We also had a lesson with S again. We taught her about the commandments and she committed to stop drinking coffee and to live all the other laws. She doesn’t really have a problem with any of the other laws but we'll see.... I don't doubt she does. She's so Christ-like and loves the gospel as she's been learning it.

WEDNESDAY:

We taught BP again and he's really making a huge progress in the gospel. We taught him about the Restoration and he really seemed receptive to it.  He's also just a really funny guy.

THRUSDAY:

Well, it pretty much rained all day so I'm again so thankful you sent me the rain jacket ma! We then had a lesson in the night with Familia M. We've been a little concerned about them since they've been having trouble with consistently reading.  I love that family so much and they're so nice.  I just want them to progress in the gospel and to find happiness through baptism.  They're so close.  They just need to exercise faith to receive an answer and then to have real intent to act upon the answer they receive. We brought Familia S with us and they bore strong testimonies about seminary and the Book of Mormon. Then Elder Galvez asked me to teach about the Book of Mormon and prayer in the conversion process. I didn't know what to say, but for some reason i just didn't even think about it and I just started talking in Spanish.  I was able to teach, ask questions, understand questions, and bear testimony to Familia M about the Book of Mormon and the power it has to change our lives. I felt blessed by the Lord to be able to open my mouth and try to help them come closer to Christ.

FRIDAY:

Since Elder Galvez is the new district leader now, he has to do exchanges with all the missionaries in the district. So he started with Elder Vance and Elder Chilcote. Elder Galvez went up to inner Cumorah, and Elder Chilcote came with me. Once again, the two missionaries with the least experience, together, managing an area. Let's just say it was a hard day. We were driving back when we realized we didn't have the cell phone so we had to go back to Cumorah. Then we had to look through Cumorah for Elder Galvez and Elder Vance. We eventually found them and then we drove back and got stuck in traffic. Then our dinner appointment called and told us that the only time they had to get us food was right then. So we had to go to Subway and get lost along the way.  We had an appointment with a team-up waiting for us the whole time and then the appointment with the team-up didn't even work. Then things started getting better. We taught two lessons that went decently well and then went back to the apartment.

SATURDAY:

It was Stake Conference which was hilarious. We had Elder Aidukaitis of the First Quorum of the Seventies come and he is just hilarious.  At the adult session of conference on Saturday he asked "Is anyone here investigating the church?" to which three people on the front row stood up. Elder Aidukaitis then said, "You know, this meeting is for members only, so after the meeting you have two choices. You are either baptized and join the church (long pause) or we have to kill you!" Then he laughed so hard he shorted out the microphone for a second.  Man he was so cool! He talked about missionary work and how members need to do their part. My favorite part was when he talked to missionaries and said that if the members don't do their part that's no excuse not to work at all.  We still need to be doing the same things and working our hardest.

SUNDAY:

Saturday night we also talked to BP and Familia D about attending Stake Conference at the Technical College which was like 30 miles away. They didn't have a ride, but we told them we would try to find them one. We finally got them a ride an hour before church and they wouldn't answer their phone.  So we just went over and woke them all up and told them to get ready since their ride was coming to pick them up. We sat and waited until Hermano Lopez came to get them and then we left. They showed up and BP listened to the whole thing. He's committed to be baptized this Saturday!

We also had a huge party/dinner to attend at Famila S de Mexico and their extended family. She wanted to have a Family Home Evening. Elder Galvez and Elder Amaro, the two native speakers, taught a lesson on The Plan of Salvation. After we had 4 more appointments and passed out 3 Books of Mormon. IT was really cool to see.

We also taught S about the commandments again and invited her to be baptized this Saturday as well. She was a little hesitant and said she needed "more faith", but our team-up, Hermana S said, "The thing about faith, is that it requires us to act." and then she told about how faith is about action.  She basically taught the first three parts of The Gospel to S again.  S has agreed to be baptized the 26 of this month.

I got your packages and I'm so happy to have a camera! Thank you for sending me my jacket as well. I just bought a winter coat and a little jacket at Marshalls so when it gets cold like it is more and more each day. I can keep warm. Holy crud! I totally underestimated the cold. It's just so flippin’ wet down here and a little cold makes it feel like you're swimming in a frozen lake, but with these coats now I'll be fine. I actually kind of like it.

I'm so glad to have the opportunity to serve the lord. Sunday I was feeling pretty inadequate and like this is more Elder Galvez's missionary work. But then he was talking to me and he said, "This is hard. This is the hardest thing you are ever going to do, but Elder Rodabough it is worth it. Every day it is worth it." Ii really want to make every day meaningful as though it is the last in my mission and that I can serve as hard as I can.

Oh yeah something else?!?!?!  ELDER OAKS IS COMING THIS SATURDAY!!!!  Yeah he's coming to speak to the Atlanta Georgia North Mission and the Atlanta Mission. We're all super excited and we know that it's going to be awesome. President Wolfert left the whole mission a voicemail and said that Elder Oaks is just going to come and speak on whatever the Spirit prompts him to speak on. FOR TWO HOURS!!  Man, I hope that one day I can do that for 10 minutes let alone two hours. We're super excited!!!

Love,

Elder Rodabough the second--Your favorite son

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